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| Natural beauty... |
29th August 2012
For some time now I
have been on the lookout for some Honey bees.
This generally involves a lot of waiting, daydreaming and luck.
Well my luck had
changed. On Wednesday 29th August I got
a phone call to let me know of a swarm of Honey bees in a residential
garden. So I downed tools, got my kit,
jumped into the car and drove “whilst adhering to the speed limit at all times”
and made my way to meet the owner of the house to collect the house keys from
them at their work place.
There was a little
drive to the house which was quite easy to find but my mind was thinking on
what to expect. I have collected a few
swarms before but always assisted by somebody.
This time I was going solo.
So I arrived at the
house and immediately went in search of the bees, Ahh excellent... there they
are... 8ft up in an apple tree, in the back garden. They looked beautiful, inspiring, too
beautiful to remove in fact, but I was there to remove them nevertheless. I returned to my car and got all of the
equipment needed to retrieve them such as:
- 1 x cardboard box
- 1 x step ladder
- 1 x bee suit and
pair of gloves
- 1 x mobile
telephone (with camera built in)
The colony looked
so beautiful in fact that I decided to get closer and take some snaps before I
moved them. So before I got into my full
body bee suit, the ladder got put up close to them, then I climbed onto the
second rung and was within 2 foot of them.
I took a few pictures and just watched them for a couple of minutes as
this was truly a special moment for me.
They were so placid, not a single bee giving any attention to me, I was
at one with some Honey bees.
Upon closer
inspection it became apparent that this was not a recent swarm as I was told on
the telephone. This was an established
colony with food stores, brood and plenty of comb.
Ah, at this point I
have remembered that I have forgotten to mention the weather that day, which
was drying up after heavy showers.
As I was moving on
the ladder, my wet boot, on the wet rung of the ladder slipped and I lost my
balance. My natural automatic response
was to hold onto something to steady myself, this just so happened to be a
branch of the tree, naturally...
Now, what can only
be called a “mass of bees” fell from the colony and landed on me; in fact they
landed on my head, neck and shoulders.
Suddenly this once placid colony had thought I was there to do them
harm.
Oh crap!!!
Luckily my
automatic responses kicked in pretty quick and I jumped off the ladder, brushed
the majority of the bees off with my hands, and headed inside the house and
shut the door behind me to reduce the amount of bees following me. Then I realised that there were still bees on
me.
“Ow, ow, ow stop
stinging me” I yelled.
There were quite a
few bees stuck in my hair who thought their best course of action was to sting
my head and in doing so committing suicide.
Now frantically
brushing bees off me, I realised that I have been stung many, many times, as in
dozens, to be honest I wasn’t counting as my chin, cheeks, arms, neck and head
were stung multiple times. I began to
think
“I have never been
stung this many times before”,
“How will my body
cope”,
“I'm here on my
own”,
“Where’s my phone
if I need to call someone? Oh crap it's outside on the floor”.
A few minutes later
all of the bees were off but I was still buzzing, literally...
The bee suit was
now on; all zips were triple checked to ensure no more stings. I was sweating, pumped on adrenalin but there
was still a job to do.
So I watched them
for a little while and they all returned to the colony and everything looked
normal again. This time, armed with a bee
suit, gloves and cardboard box, I retrieved my mobile phone and returned to the
second rung of that ladder to begin to collect the swarm.
The sweat was
pouring out of me, but I managed to transfer 75% of the bees and their comb
into the cardboard box. I rested the box
on the ground and went back inside for 5-10 minutes to see if I had got the
queen and to let them settle down.
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| All of their comb was kept and returned to them in a new home |
Here is when I
phoned a friend to let them know what has happened, after reliving my version
of events to them I was greeted with hysterical laughter and some concern,
albeit through laughter.
After the phone
call ended I returned outside to see what was going on. There were still 75 - 80% of the bees and their
entire comb in the box but there were still stragglers on their original position. I saw some signs that showed me that the
queen was in fact inside the box so after a couple more attempts to collect the
remainder of the bees, I packed my stuff up and headed back to the car.
It was an
interesting drive back to this person’s place of work, some of the bees decided
to stay on me personally for our journey in the car. Others helped me change gear by resting on the gear stick, some just stayed on the dashboard and enjoyed the view.
I got out of the car and walked through a
very busy outdoor shopping area whilst still wearing a beekeeping suit with approximately
a dozen bees on me, it would not bee a surprise to you when I say that I got an
unusual, retreating response from the public.
The crowd just got out of my way, and at this point the funny side of
the events were beginning to kick in.
I did offer some
bees to members of the public but had no takers sadly, so after handing the
keys back and saying the job was complete I headed back to my car with a few
less bees still clinging onto me.
It was a pleasant
drive back to the workshop, where their new home was waiting. We arrived in one piece “whilst adhering to
the speed limits at all times”. They
were now very pleasant bees to bee around as I transported them into a National
bee hive. I returned their comb that
they built back to them as it did contain lots of brood and food, which is rightfully theirs. After ensuring they were settled, I walked away to remove the bee suit.
Now I realised
something interesting... the stings that I received in the garden, quite a lot
of them were still in me. So for some 40
minutes the venom sacks were still pumping venom into my body because when it
actually happened I didn't remove them all.
So I searched for
venom sacks and sat down and watched the little darlings for a little while
before heading back to the car and going home.
Once home, I was greeted with some sniggers followed by some food.
When replaying the
events in my mind later that evening I thought:
“What a great story
that is”
“Someone will
really enjoy listening to or reading that”
So to summarise, what
have I learnt from today’s events?
- That I can cope with multiple bee
stings, even though I do not wish to repeat these events again.
- To wear non slip footwear.
- That if somebody did assist me today,
there would be a video on its way to “You've been framed” or “You Tube” as we
speak.
- To remove all venom sacks ASAP.
- That my automatic responses are pretty
dam efficient.
- To wear a bee suit when getting close
to a colony even though I think I'm safe, something may happen.
- That I am able to see the funny side in a
very unusual situation.
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| Lovely to see the Ladies coming home |
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| It looks to me their new flyers are getting to grips with flying |
Labels: Bee hives, Honey Bees, Stings, Swarm Collection
